Monday, January 24, 2011

Vogue Knitting Live

The String Fashion Show at Vogue Knitting Live. Wow! Even though I am quite familiar with all of the designs at String, their Fashion Show still thrilled me and the hundreds of other knitters who were lucky enough glimpse at all of these beautiful handknitted designs.

Joined by several friends,I spent an unbelievable weekend at the NY Hilton, at the first ever, Vogue Knitting Live event, allowing us to be part of the Vogue Knitting experience live and in person. I started with a class on Continental Knitting withLeslye Solomon whose patience, humor and experience were great assets. I am still resistant to purling using this method, however, I plan to keep trying andhope I can take another class with the talented Leslye to reinforce my purl stitch. Beth Brown-Reinsel's Latvian Fingerless Mitts were challenging but, not at all impossible. And best of all, the skills I learned from Leslye on Friday morning were put to use in this class on Sunday. And, Beth showed us how to do a two-color cast on and I loved that.

For me, the best part of this event was the Marketplace. I love to shop and shopping for yarn and associated products is at the top of my list for favorite activities. I loved meeting so many knitters, new and old friends and designers like the gorgeous Ysolda Teague seen here on right. Not only did I get a chance to speak with this talented young designer, but she had the most awesome outfit and the coolest shoes. I knit her Ishbel lace shawlette this past summer and loved the pattern. I was so glad to have the opportunity to tell her in person. Also chatted with Teva Durham- looking forward to bringing her to our Salon one of these days, and had a few moments with special friends: Nadine Curtis of Be Sweet and Catherine Lowe . So glad I met the very talented Julie Weisenberger of Coco knits and her great team from San Francisco.

There are more tales to tell and yarns to describe. Windy Valley Muskox had beautiful shades of Quiviut and quiviut blends along with the most divine pima cotton (already on my fabulous new Blackthorn dps in size 1). Tess Designer Yarns offered a spectacular selection of fibers and colors and it was hard to choose. I had not seen Melinda in almost 20 years and was thrilled to see that she is still producing some of the most splendid and beautiful colors and fibers around.

Sad to see it end. Kudos to the Vogue team for a fantastic event. Cannot wait for the next one.